x/p ok putting this out there, need help with 11 y/o struggling reader

[nukeswife]

UPDATE AND MORE INFO in post #11

 

I'm also posting this here because with the separation of chat I'm not sure where this should be.

 

This morning we've started school again since takin off for the holidays. After about half way through our lessonsI've realized that Annika is still very behind in her reading ability. She's made great strides from last year due to her vision therapy,(which she was in for 40 weeks and graduated back in July) but she's still very behind where peers her age are. She turned 11 in Nov and is probably at a low 3rd grade reading level. Her comprehension is through the roof, she just can't read the stuff herself. We started GWG 4 this morning and reading the directions and some of the sentences was pretty tough for her. So now I wonder do I bother with grammar for her or do I just make her read/read/read for LA class. The girl can write legibly so penmanship isn't needed, She also wants to start SWI-A which I let her but I know it will be a slow process, with me mostly reading the sources to her and helping her with a lot of spelling of words. She is doing AAS without much trouble (she's almost done with level 2.She knows most of her phonograms, but for some reason when reading, things just seem to clamp down and the phonogram knowledge just doesn't transfer through.

 

Any words of wisdom for a mama who feels she totally failed her daughter in this area because she kept thinking it was a matter of her being a late bloomer in reading. I know we have a lot of work to do, but please also keep in mind I have two others to educate here, one older that is going to be starting high school in the fall and a younger who is also learning to read (but he seems to not have any trouble in this area and is just chugging along in his program)

[Mom-ninja.]

Is she dyslexic? Has she been tested? What have you used for reading instruction? Are you doing anything for reading instruction other than AAS?

 

I suggest using Reading Reflex with her. You can get the book for a great price. Work through that with her. It has a placement test in the book or just start from the beginning. You could also purchase ABeCeDarian workbooks and teacher books.It is basically Reading Reflex planned out in workbook form. I went that route for ease. This program got my dyslexic ds reading 3 grade levels above where he was in less than one year. I love Reading Reflex/ABeCeDarian but it's not talked about too much.

 

I even used it for my non-dyslexic ds to teach him to read.

 

I would not just have her read, read, read for LA. It will drain her. For all other subjects other than direct reading instruction I would dictate for her. Read all instructions and passages to her aloud. I know it's hard with other kids. I have to do it. We also use GWG, but ds can read that himself and I just make sure he understands what he read. With WWS I have to read a lot of it to him. He reads the instructions and I read the passages to him or it would take him hours.

 

If your dd hasn't been tested I recommend it. I received great suggestions from our psych.

[Ellie]

:grouphug:

 

You haven't failed. :-)

 

But I would pull out all the stops and do Spalding.

[nukeswife]

double post

[nukeswife]

She's been tested for vision issues and went through vision therapy for binocular dysfunction and something else I can't remember the name of, but no dyslexia issues were found.

 

Ellie, we tried spalding and couldn't get it to work. When I say I need it laid out I mean in plain just the facts english. WRTR seems like a lot of information without a whole lot of instruction for me. I know you love it and it's your go to, but the thing is she knows the phonograms, she can spell pretty well, but when she's reading all that phonogram work goes right out the window.

[elegantlion]

You haven't failed. My ds was like this. I'd sit in a closet and cry sometimes.

 

Here's a few of the things we did:

 

REWARDS program was immensely helpful

I feel like we re-did phonics a hundred times, some of that didn't click

Root vocabulary study - knowing how words are put together helped

reading to him assignments that were over his head

we did grammar, but not a lot of writing early on.

I bought every easy reader about Star Wars

I found books like A-to-Z mysteries that were interesting at a higher level than Magic Tree House.

I read the books he did so we could discuss them. Most had no assignments, just making sure he followed the story

 

30 minutes in the evening of reading. We took turns picking the books. I had about 8-10 to choose from. I upped the level slightly on each choice. He's a slow reader, so I tried to keep them short. Landmark biographies has some good non-fiction selections. Some are 2nd grade level, some 4th. I wanted him to have success in reading. At the end of 5th grade he read two 250-300 page books. It took him about 4-5 months to get through those two books at night.

 

Continue to read to him - this was important. He had high comprehension and was bored to tears with what he could read. I picked good books with strong vocabulary and sentence structure. We also read fun books together, like Percy Jackson and Alex Rider. I can see the effects of the "reading good books aloud" coming out this year. His word choices in speech and writing are much better than his reading ability would show.

 

I bit my tongue a lot. I cried, I told him that this was something we would tackle together. I felt horrid because as I looked back I saw signs all the way back to kindergarten in private school. He'd skip his worksheets and talk to the kid beside him. He'd get in trouble for talking, but it wasn't the talking, it was that he couldn't read the worksheet.

 

YOu haven't failed. Education is filling of the bucket, you just have to find a different path to get the contents into the bucket. It will be okay.

[chiguirre]

I'll second REWARDS. It helped Geezle to go from sounding out everything to being able to chunk a word correctly. I'd also get a Kindle, set the type to HUGE and see how she does with that. I found that Geezle could read much better than I thought, he just couldn't read small print and keep focused when he was facing two pages of text with no pictures. I agree with EL that read alouds are great for building vocabulary and hearing the books that other kids their age are reading.

 

You might also check out Apples and Pears spelling. It has some exercises that help with tracking and breaking down words as well as building them. It's worked much better for Geezle than AAS for some reason.

 

Remember you haven't done nothing, you've done vision therapy and now you're going to attack reading skills from other angles. She will improve, don't give up!

[PeterPan]

AAS may not improve her reading. It's spelling and doesn't have you work on reading at all. You can *shift* how you're using it and get it to help her reading. (reading back the dictation sentences, putting words onto flashcards to build fluency, etc.) The AAS lists are not grade-leveled for reading, so they're not building in an orderly fashion to improve her reading. So even when you do all that, you're still doing random words and word families. That's why WRTR, SWR, Barton, or something in that vein would be preferred in this case. I've looked at Reading Reflex from the library but don't have enough sense of it to know if it would help you. I will tell you though that you're *not* the only one to have this happen. If it makes you feel any better, the lead developmental optometrist at the place we used had the same situation with her kids. She was the one doing the VT too! LOL Can you imagine? She ended up bringing PACE to the practice to use with them, and that was when they began reading. I'm not really sure what that indicated. PACE brings in work on working memory, EF, visualization, all sorts of things, and pulls it into one. I'm not saying you need PACE, but maybe that story makes you feel better. I do think her continued problems are a sign you should pursue some further evals. It takes a few months to get into a psych normally, and I would definitely pursue it, even if she starts reading.

 

Will she listen to audiobooks? I'd make sure she's listening to them as much as possible while she does other things. That will give her a wealth of language to pull on when her reading does click. I would get WRTR and use your AAS techniques on the WRTR words and start working through those lists. Do 10-15, maybe even 20 words a day. Seriously crank up the pace. Build the WRTR word with your AAS tiles and rule markers. Read the words back. Then have her write the word on a flashcard. Rinse and repeat. Have her practice reading those words on the flashcards 3-5 times throughout the day. Shouldn't take more than a few minutes each pop. So at this point she's not sounding out, because she understands how the words were assembled. She's just building FLUENCY on words she knows. Start at the very beginning of the WRTR lists and move forward. There are only 1000 words. If you start there and do 10 a day, in 100 days (that's 5 months, then end of May, early June), you're done with the entire book and you have a dc reading at a stellar level. If you plateau, you'll know why. But that's using the method you LIKE (AAS) with something that will get her reading moving forward (the WRTR word lists).

[Ellie]

She's been tested for vision issues and went through vision therapy for binocular dysfunction and something else I can't remember the name of, but no dyslexia issues were found.

 

Ellie, we tried spalding and couldn't get it to work. When I say I need it laid out I mean in plain just the facts english. WRTR seems like a lot of information without a whole lot of instruction for me. I know you love it and it's your go to, but the thing is she knows the phonograms, she can spell pretty well, but when she's reading all that phonogram work goes right out the window.

 

Knowing the phonograms isn't enough. It's analyzing the words in the Extended Ayres LIst that makes the method so successful.

 

When I did Spalding with the children in my little one-room school (children first through high school age), *all* of them improved their spelling levels by *at least* two grade levels by Christmas, and higher than that by the end of the year. And the ones who were struggling with reading finished the school year reading above grade level.

 

Spalding is the most comprehensive reading/spelling method I have ever reviewed. I'd be happy to help you out and show you why it is, in fact, a whole lot of instruction *for you.*

 

But I love you biggie bunches even if you don't do Spalding. I'm sure you'll figure things out, whatever you decide to do. :grouphug:

[nukeswife]

OhElizabeth, you have me listening with the using WRTR with an AAS method. So basically I would use our tiles to "code" the word instead of the coding.

 

I guess that's the part that has me all confused with WRTR, I don't understand how to give the words etc. I know I'm supposed to do the phonogram cards, so many a day and building as the days go by. I know I would have to add to some of them, because I simply can't teach that y doesn't say long e, that one really gets to me. I know that's my issue to deal with. But I don't get how you do the word lists. I really need it spelled out for me. Like day 1 do x, day 2 do y, day 3 do z and so on.

 

If I do WRTR in an AAS manner, do you recommend I keep doing AAS at the same time? I already own levels 1-6 of AAS, so if I used them for reading she wouldn't have to make up flashcards, but it sounds like you're saying that it might not work for reading because the words aren't leveled by grade.

 

ETA: forgot to add that she does have an ipod and lots of audiobooks. She listen to something every night. I also read aloud to her as well. Today she picked the B&N classic starts version of White Fang for me to use as her next read aloud, but we've done lots of other books, some she picks, some I pick.

[nukeswife]

I'm now really confused with this child. She sat down to read with us from her book. This is what she was able to read to us, and her fluency was good with a few stumbles on the words I underlined.

 

In one or two places along the shelves, several dragons let out a hrr. With the tip of her little finger, Liz broke off a tiny piece of ice and brought it into the open air. It glinted in the light of her gooseneck lamp. She handed the box back to Lucy, who immediately closed the lid. Lucy gulped and held her breath as her mom put the ice on the end of the dragon's snout. Within seconds, it had melted and run inside his trumpet-shaped nostrils. Mrs. Pennykettle smiled and carefully twisted the turntable around until the new dragon was facing the dragon named Guinevere. "Time to go," Liz said in a quiet voice, and guided Lucy toward the door. From the doorway, Lucy took a quick glance back. Guinevere had opened her eyes. They were radiant and purple and shining with fire. Lucy clamped her hands to her chest and whispered, "Please make him the best guard dragon ever, Guinivere." "Go, " said Liz, softly but firmly. And Lucy dared not argue. She blew the new dragon a heartfelt kiss and closed the door of the Dragons' Den.

 

It took her about 12 minutes to read that passage. When I asked her why she had such a hard time reading her grammar instructions and page she said "Well it's not fun like reading a story" So I think we may not have the reading issues I thought. Obviously there is some work to do, but not nearly as much as I thought. I mean she was stumbling on things like "The big black bird flew to the nest" earlier today. I swear this girl is going to be my undoing.

[lamppost]

I'm now really confused with this child. She sat down to read with us from her book. This is what she was able to read to us, and her fluency was good with a few stumbles on the words I underlined.

 

In one or two places along the shelves, several dragons let out a hrr. With the tip of her little finger, Liz broke off a tiny piece of ice and brought it into the open air. It glinted in the light of her gooseneck lamp. She handed the box back to Lucy, who immediately closed the lid. Lucy gulped and held her breath as her mom put the ice on the end of the dragon's snout. Within seconds, it had melted and run inside his trumpet-shaped nostrils. Mrs. Pennykettle smiled and carefully twisted the turntable around until the new dragon was facing the dragon named Guinevere. "Time to go," Liz said in a quiet voice, and guided Lucy toward the door. From the doorway, Lucy took a quick glance back. Guinevere had opened her eyes. They were radiant and purple and shining with fire. Lucy clamped her hands to her chest and whispered, "Please make him the best guard dragon ever, Guinivere." "Go, " said Liz, softly but firmly. And Lucy dared not argue. She blew the new dragon a heartfelt kiss and closed the door of the Dragons' Den.

 

It took her about 12 minutes to read that passage.

 

 

Is this a typo or am I not understanding? Are you saying it took her 12 minutes to read just that paragraph you quoted? That should take about 1 minute to read with good fluency.

[nukeswife]

Is this a typo or am I not understanding? Are you saying it took her 12 minutes to read just that paragraph you quoted? That should take about 1 minute to read with good fluency.

 

I guess it actually took her 9 minutes, but it wasn't just one paragraph as I have it listed it was on a few different pages, and there were some interruptions and time to sound out the the underlined words as well as a few others which I didn't mark because she got them, and took only a few seconds to sound out. The underlined one were the ones we had to just tell her after about 20-30 seconds of sounding out.

 

When I say good fluency I mean not stopping to sound out every word.

[PeterPan]

Yes, you are understanding me correctly. I would get WRTR from the library, look at the word lists, and IGNORE the entire rest of the book. The world will NOT end. WRTR is almost identical to AAS anyway. I wouldn't jive you here. I've used HTTS, WRTR, AAS, SWR, PR, um, lets keep going, and they're all SO similar. They're more similar than they are different. Use the AAS methodology, rules, phonograms, explanations, etc. you're used to, but do it to WRTR words. I have AAS 1-6 btw. I used them with my dd after VT for a refresher. :) What *I* would do in your shoes is tell her WRTR is *reading* and AAS is *spelling*. That way you can do both. It's only for a semester, not forever.

 

Make up how you want to introduce and handle the WRTR. Be rogue. Do it like you're used to, or spice things up a bit. Type the words onto paper that you cut in strips and fold. Then put your 10 words for the day in a mystery bag. You pull it out, read it to her, parse together a la AAS, read it back, write onto a flashcard, read it again. Rinse and repeat. Or use your app. Or make crazy sentences where she has to GUESS what the spelling word was. Or... You're NOT going to screw this up.

 

Is her ipod a touch such that she can put flashcards on it? :)

 

On the eval thing, have you done any standardized testing in the past year? That would be a conservative way to start. It takes a while to find a good psych or neuropsych and then get on the list for an eval. I suggest you do that. If, 3-4 months from now when your appt rolls around, you realize you don't need it, you cancel, no biggee. She's at the point though where it's time to get that eval.

[nukeswife]

I have to do standardized testing every year per the state. We've done the ITBS the last few years. I believe last year her reading tests put her in about the 20th percentile.

 

Oh and I'll see if my library has a copy of WRTR, i know they used to but it was pretty beat up. I also know I've seen it at my B&N.

 

Her ipod is just a nano, but she does have an ipad as well, so I'm sure I can find a flashcard app for that or for our imac.

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

IMHO I would strongly consider looking at Elizabeth B's free phonic lessons and Webster's Speller and the syllabary which were used for decades in teaching reading. Elizabeth spells out how to use these resources on her web page.

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/webstersway.html

[Mom-ninja.]

I forgot about REWARDS. I used that after we finished Reading Reflex. REWARDS is very good. It's like a continuation of Reading Reflex.

 

By the way, Reading Reflex is recommended in WTM for remedial reading help.

[KathyBC]

I'm going to "third" the REWARDS suggestion. Your dd sounds like she is past Reading Reflex, at least to me. The passage you listed has 190 words, giving your dd a fluency rate of 21 wpm. Ideally, you want to aim for 100 wpm (although words like Guinevere would need some help beforehand or during, for sure.) REWARDS helps kids to read longer words (like immediately) and has fluency drills. We saw a huge improvement in ds' reading after doing this program. It is simple to implement and streamlined, with only 25 lessons.

[FairProspects]

Tagging along on this thread, can anyone tell me what you did after REWARDS to increase fluency? Ds has done it all and still struggles with fluency.

[KathyBC]

We had done some vision therapy and homemade fluency drills before REWARDS. After REWARDS we started on Megawords, which also has fluency drills. DS is still a slower reader than others in the family, but we're satisfied at this point in time.

[nukeswife]

Can some post a link to REWARDS so I can look at it and so I know where I can buy it.

[Cynful]

Not sure if there are other places to purchase it, but here is their website:

 

http://www.soprislearning.com/cs/Satellite/REWARDS_Overview?cmsid=Sopris

[nukeswife]

Not sure if there are other places to purchase it, but here is their website:

 

http://www.soprislea...ew?cmsid=Sopris

 

 

 

Thank you, now that I know what it is I can look around for it.

[Paula in MS]

What has helped my dd11 tremendously is just requiring her to read more. Last year she was struggling through just about everything, but had wonderful comprehension. This year, I am requiring her to read 2 chapters from 2 different books during her reading time. One book is on grade level but the other is about a third grade level. (At the beginning of the year it was 1 chapter of each.). I also required that she read her own history and science. No more reading aloud to her. History is SOTW 1 which Is broken into small manageable chunks. The science is the Apologia swimming creatures and land animals books. Instead of doing history/science only once a week, she reads from them every day, just short passages. She is a much better reader in just 4 months.

[Alessandra]

I know you've got some good specific suggestions. My suggestion would be comprehensive testing, since dd is 11 (6th grade?) and you feel she is at an early 3rd grade level in some aspects of reading. That is a big gap!

 

A well respected test that might help is the Woodcock Johnson Tests of Achievement (WJIII) -- they are well known and lots of professionals have qualifications for administering them. You wouldn't do all the WJIII tests, just some/all of the ones that pertain to reading (about 6 modules). The reason I'm suggesting testing is that (in my experience anyway, with my own dc -- not professionally, I should add), children who are weak in an area like, say decoding, may actually have both strong and weak areas that affect performance, and it is difficult to determine exactly where those strengths/weaknesses are without testing.

 

Then you can get the most targeted program recommendations possible.

 

Oh, BTW, don't say you are a bad parent!!!!!

[Alessandra]

Her ipod is just a nano, but she does have an ipad as well, so I'm sure I can find a flashcard app for that or for our imac.

 

 

Quizlet has an app that works on iPad, iPod, iPhone. I have a few flashcard apps and this is my favorite. There is also a website for when you are on the computer. The mobile app actually pronounces words in a nice, non-mechanical voice.

[nukeswife]

I know you've got some good specific suggestions. My suggestion would be comprehensive testing, since dd is 11 (6th grade?) and you feel she is at an early 3rd grade level in some aspects of reading. That is a big gap! A well respected test that might help is the Woodcock Johnson Tests of Achievement (WJIII) -- they are well known and lots of professionals have qualifications for administering them. You wouldn't do all the WJIII tests, just some/all of the ones that pertain to reading (about 6 modules). The reason I'm suggesting testing is that (in my experience anyway, with my own dc -- not professionally, I should add), children who are weak in an area like, say decoding, may actually have both strong and weak areas that affect performance, and it is difficult to determine exactly where those strengths/weaknesses are without testing. Then you can get the most targeted program recommendations possible. Oh, BTW, don't say you are a bad parent!!!!!

She's actually in 5th grade because she has a mid Nov birthday.

 

Quizlet has an app that works on iPad, iPod, iPhone. I have a few flashcard apps and this is my favorite. There is also a website for when you are on the computer. The mobile app actually pronounces words in a nice, non-mechanical voice.

Thanks I'll look into that one.

[PeterPan]

Just for your trivia, SWB has a talk on "homeschooling the real child" where she has started saying that if the stuff you thought they'd outgrow hasn't been outgrown by 5th, that's really the time to get evals. This is the age where it all hits the fan. The expectations go up. It costs money to get a good eval, but it's information and hurts nothing, only helps. May find something, and that info lets you make changes and target your efforts, make sure you're not missing anything.

[lamppost]

I guess it actually took her 9 minutes, but it wasn't just one paragraph as I have it listed it was on a few different pages, and there were some interruptions and time to sound out the the underlined words as well as a few others which I didn't mark because she got them, and took only a few seconds to sound out. The underlined one were the ones we had to just tell her after about 20-30 seconds of sounding out.

 

When I say good fluency I mean not stopping to sound out every word.

 

 

 

Oh okay... I strongly agree with the poster who recommended the WJ-III reading subtests. The Word Attack subtest, for example, would let you know how she's doing with pure decoding skills. The Reading Fluency subtest give you an idea of how fluently she's reading. A good tester should be able to help you pinpoint what the difficulty is and help you figure out what to focus on for instruction moving forward.

 

Even at 9 minutes rather than 12, even given that those sentences were on different pages rather than in one paragraph, her fluency is very low. When calculating fluency, you don't discount the time it takes to sound out any words. 9 minutes to get through that much text is below-the-charts low for an 11-year-old. I agree that by that age, it's no longer a case of late-bloomer or anything like that.

 

The good news is, it could take a relatively short time (meaning months, not years) of focused daily instruction to get her reading more fluently. You've gotten some good suggestions here and in the other thread, and here's one more- the Seeing Stars program from Lindamood-Bell can get great results. It's mostly delivered through their tutoring centers, but they also sell their materials. The only thing that really sets it apart is the focus on strengthening symbol imagery, as well as the error-handling technique they employ when students make a mistake while reading aloud. I think you'd have success with Spalding too, but L-B is the one I've taught myself and the results I've seen are amazing. If you want to hear more about it I can tell you more.

[stansclan89]

Not sure if there are other places to purchase it, but here is their website:

 

http://www.soprislea...ew?cmsid=Sopris

 

Do you need the teacher's guide? It's pretty expensive on their website.

[Alessandra]

Oh okay... I strongly agree with the poster who recommended the WJ-III reading subtests. The Word Attack subtest, for example, would let you know how she's doing with pure decoding skills. The Reading Fluency subtest give you an idea of how fluently she's reading. A good tester should be able to help you pinpoint what the difficulty is and help you figure out what to focus on for instruction moving forward.

 

You've gotten some good suggestions here and in the other thread, and here's one more- the Seeing Stars program from Lindamood-Bell can get great results. It's mostly delivered through their tutoring centers, but they also sell their materials. The only thing that really sets it apart is the focus on strengthening symbol imagery, as well as the error-handling technique they employ when students make a mistake while reading aloud. I think you'd have success with Spalding too, but L-B is the one I've taught myself and the results I've seen are amazing. If you want to hear more about it I can tell you more.

 

I'm glad I wasn't the only one suggesting testing....

 

We're using some of the Lindamood Bell materials (comprehension program, V&V, in my siggy). But Seeing Stars is a phenomenal program, very highly regarded, not used much in school, as the teaching is very individualized. I have her friend who pulled her ds out of ps every morning for several months to take him to a Lindamood Bell center. Reading skyrocketed, and has stayed strong.

 

The center programs are very expensive, but they can be done on your own. I would suggest that you get the Teacher Manual, even if you think you might not "need" it. I was able to get a used copy for my program at a fraction of the cost of new and the people at Gander Publications (who sell the LMB materials) were very helpful comparing editions for me.

 

But I would do a professional eval first. Here is a book about WJIII that I found very helpful. It has a lot of info -- so it might be overkill for some -- but I'm linking it because I know how thorough you are about using.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Essentials-III-Tests-Achievement-Assessment/dp/0471330590/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1357754187&sr=8-2&keywords=woodcock+johnson+iii

[PeterPan]

I full psych or neuropsych eval will vary in price, may be covered by insurance. Sometimes you can find someone (not a psych) who can administer the WJIII. We did it with a tutor in the area and I think paid $75. She did the basic test but had the extras that she sometimes administered to kids who needed them. So if you could find someone at that price point, that's another way of getting that type of information. For us, what we got with the full psych/neuropsych eval went beyond what the WJIII gave us, but anything is a start. Anyways, might give you a lead on how to find that testing.

 

Lamppost, would you like to explain precisely what Seeing Stars does? Gander has so many products, and I'll bet these are things the op has seen mentioned. She might not know precisely why a particular thing would be helpful for her situation. And of course I'm interested, because I'm keeping an eye on what my ds4 may need. :)

[JanetC]

There is a great post about using an ipad with dyslexia -- all the ways to get Siri to read your school work to you and help with spelling. (All of these apps would help with any reading disability, not just dyslexia)

 

http://forums.welltr...ol/page__st__50

 

Scroll to post #52.

 

I would continue to work on improving her reading ability with the tools listed by others, but having an ipad set up to read to her might be a great way to make sure she doesn't fall behind in other subjects as she catches up on reading.

 

(Of course, our homeschool just got an ipad for Christmas, so I may be biased!)

[lamppost]

I have her friend who pulled her ds out of ps every morning for several months to take him to a Lindamood Bell center. Reading skyrocketed, and has stayed strong. The center programs are very expensive, but they can be done on your own.

 

Oh yes, verrry expensive at the centers. I used to work at one. It may vary a bit by location, but I think now the cost per hour is up around $80 on average. And it's not like it's an hour a week- the minimum would be 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 4 weeks- so 80 hours to start. (And yeah they only pay the clinicians a small fraction of that amount.) We did get a fair number of students whose school districts were paying the costs though.

 

 

Sometimes you can find someone (not a psych) who can administer the WJIII. We did it with a tutor in the area and I think paid $75.

 

We used a local person who does testing for homeschoolers and paid $100 for the achievement portion of the WJ-III. That can be done by an educator, but I think the cognitive part (IQ test) would have to be done by a psych. OP would just use achievement for this purpose though.

 

Lamppost, would you like to explain precisely what Seeing Stars does? Gander has so many products, and I'll bet these are things the op has seen mentioned. She might not know precisely why a particular thing would be helpful for her situation. And of course I'm interested, because I'm keeping an eye on what my ds4 may need. :)

 

Sure, well their products are really overpriced, but if you're somebody who needs premade stuff it'll definitely make things easier. Here's a kit that includes a lot of the teaching materials: http://www.ganderpub...-Stars-Kit.html

And these are their decoding workbooks, which I guess is not included in the kit because they're consumable? http://www.ganderpub...-Workbooks.html

 

 

I've worked in one of their clinics and also in a reading intervention center at a school district where everyone was trained in the program. The materials are not really different from what a lot of phonics programs offer, but I'll try to explain the differences in the program that make it effective.

 

1. It's intense and relentless. It's meant to be done at their centers, which means a 55-minute one-on-one session each hour for 4 hours straight, rotating to a new clinician (teacher) for each hour. And every minute of that is WORK. They drilled into us that our students were paying more than $1 for every minute, so we had to make every minute count. There's a constant back-and-forth between student and clinician and both have to be on their toes. Here's an article about brain changes after going through the program, and it's not hard to believe given the intense, focused, and sustained nature of the program.

 

2. The focus on symbol imagery is (I think) the key to the program. That means students are trained so that when they hear sounds, like the word "cat" spoken aloud, they immediately and automatically call to mind a mental image of the letters c-a-t. (Worth noting that many people do this naturally anyway, but they're not the ones who struggle with reading!) Every student starts at the very beginning with "a" says /a/, and learns how to create mental images based on sounds heard . The pace varies greatly for individuals, but everybody has to go through each phoneme and they don't move on to syllables until phonemes are mastered. (But this is where I think Spalding has a leg up as Spalding teaches more of the rules whereas L-B tends to teach some rules, then claims certain words are an exception to "the rule".)

 

3. The approach to error-handling keeps both student & teacher focused. It also helps students to be more aware of their own errors and gives them tools to catch & correct their own mistakes. Here's how it would go if the student reads a sentence but says "sumble" when the text actually shows "stumble".

1. Call attention to comprehension: Ask, "Does that make sense?" (Sometimes it will still make sense with the error they made and in that case you'd skip this question and just ask them to re-read the whole sentence containing the error.) The student reads the sentence again. Often they can catch which word they made an error on, but if they don't see it, only at that point would the teacher indicate to take another look at the word in question. If the student again makes an error reading this word in isolation, move to the next step.
    
   
2. Respond to the response: Cover the word so the student doesn't just keep trying to read it. Given that the student said "sumble" instead of "stumble", say, "When you say 'sumble', what letter do you picture after the 's'?" The student would respond that they picture a "u" after the "s". (By the time the student has moved on from working with phonemes to reading sentences, they have already been working on symbol imagery exercises for a while and hopefully can answer correctly here. If they say anything other than "u" for this one, say "sumble" carefully while the student watches your mouth form the sounds, then prompt the student to say "sumble" again and see if they can come up with "u". If they can't, tell them what it would be and move to the next step but consider adding extra symbol imagery practice. )
    
   
3. Uncover the word so the student can check their response to your question with the word on the page. They should see that there's actually a "t" after the "s" and can try again, hopefully getting to "stumble" at this point. If they make a new error, go back to step 2 and respond to the new response.
   

Finally let me give some examples of how symbol imagery can be developed. The most basic task is to show a phoneme card (like "a"), tell them the name of the letter(s) and what sound it makes, have them say the name & sound while tracing the letter(s) on the card with their finger. Then remove the card and have them write the letter(s) in the air, again saying the name of the letter(s) and sound. This same approach is used to learn sight words, but once the student has "written" the word in the air, you have them go through a series of tasks that forces them to continually image the word. For example, point to the third letter in the word- what is it? Now point to the last letter- say all the letters in backward order.

 

These kinds of tasks are also done with the syllable cards. A card in the CVC pack might show "fip".

1. Hold up the card for several seconds while the student gets a mental image of the word.
    
   
2. Take the card away and the student writes the letters in the air while saying the letter names. Then they read the word- "fip". (If they make an error, follow the error-handling technique above.)
    
   
3. Double-check that they're still imaging the word by asking symbol imagery questions (what's the 3rd letter, etc.)
    
   
4. If the student has been doing this for a while, you can start to have some fun at this point. Say, "Point to the 'f'. Now add an 'l' after the 'f'." The student "writes" in the new letter in the correct place and reads, "flip". You can come up with long chains of words (including nonsense words) in this way, with the student imaging, air-writing, and reading the whole way through.
   

fip

flip

frip

trip

trips

strips

stripped (once they've been introduced to -ed endings in the program)

strapped

strapping (again after -ing endings and multi-syllable have been introduced)

scrapping

scrapper

scapper

scatter

catter

chatter

 

It gets really fun (well, it did for me :blush: ) with an advanced student who has learned all the affixes. It's really challenging to see how many real, not nonsense words I can come up with in a row to make a super long chain while staying within the rules of only changing, adding, or subtracting one letter or syllable at a time. One time I think I had about a 20-word chain with words up to 5 syllables in it and they were ALL real words. I really wish I'd written that one down. But throwing nonsense words in there is standard and very beneficial as well.

 

Hope that helps somebody!

[PeterPan]

Lamppost, that was fascinating! Thanks for explaining all that! I didn't realize it went so far with visualization. Fascinating.

[Alessandra]

 

I've worked in one of their clinics and also in a reading intervention center at a school district where everyone was trained in the program. The materials are not really different from what a lot of phonics programs offer, but I'll try to explain the differences in the program that make it effective.

 

 

I'm so glad that I checked this thread for updates.... What a valuable post you made. Never having been at an actual center, I am fascinated to hear the details. I only wish my district would use programs like Seeing Stars and V&V, instead of computer based, "individualized" programs. (Think Achieve3000.)

 

If you have any descriptions of V&V, I would LOVE to hear them. It's what I use with dd. And, sadly, there are no workshops anywhere near me.

[kitten18]

Lamppost that was fascinating. So...out of curiosity what are you using (or did use, I don't know how old your kids are) to teach your own kids to read? :bigear: :D

[Alessandra]

Lamppost that was fascinating. So...out of curiosity what are you using (or did use, I don't know how old your kids are) to teach your own kids to read? :bigear: :D

 

:lurk5:

 

I'd like to know too.

[lamppost]

Lamppost that was fascinating. So...out of curiosity what are you using (or did use, I don't know how old your kids are) to teach your own kids to read? :bigear: :D

 

My kids are 3 and 5. DD5 was a very early and natural reader- she picked up letter sounds from things like Super Why & Starfall and could sound out words at 2. So I didn't really need to use a program with her, but I did do maybe an hour total over a few weeks of using the Seeing Stars method with maybe 20 sight words that were tripping her up when she'd try to read easy readers (words like "who" and "there"). Then after a while I realized she was no longer trying to sound out unfamilar words, just guessing similar words or using context and I didn't think it was a good idea for her to have no direct phonics instruction so I got a couple of books.

 

I got Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons from the library and went through some of it with her, starting about halfway through and skipping a lot, plus we didn't do any of the writing involved. I thought it was good for her because it teaches a method for not just sounding out words but blending the sounds. Then I got OPGTR because it goes on to much bigger & more complicated words but we didn't end up using it much since DD was happily reading longer chapter books by then.

 

Seeing Stars isn't really a beginning reading program, it's an intervention that works great for people with dyslexia. But, you could integrate some of the method into any other beginning reading program.

 

If you have any descriptions of V&V, I would LOVE to hear them. It's what I use with dd. And, sadly, there are no workshops anywhere near me.

 

Sure, but I think I've blabbed on in OP's thread enough so when I get a minute I'll start a new thread on the L-B programs. (Or you can, if you get to it before I do. :) )

[FairProspects]

Ack, this thread really makes me want to buy Seeing Stars b/c despite all the phonics, and prefix/suffix work we have done with my dyslexic ds, these are the kinds of fluency errors he still makes! Things like reading "then" whenever he sees "when" and consistently reading "stared" instead of "started". I'm not sure if SS would be overkill though for these little errors?

[lamppost]

I'm not sure if SS would be overkill though for these little errors?

 

 

I think the $400 set would be overkill but if you can find the manual cheap you could use some of the technique.

 

Also I started a new thread for questions about the program: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/448834-lindamood-bell-programs-for-reading-comprehension/

[nukeswife]

I just wanted to stop in and say thank you to all that helped me think this through by giving me input on options available to help my dd. DH and I have gone ahead and got her an appointment for a neuro psych eval. That won't happen until April though. For now dh and I are leaning toward getting the Barton System. I emailed them and Susan sent me the post-tests for levels 1-3 and I have given her the student screening as well as the level 1 and 2 post-tests. She did fine on the screening and the level 1 test, but we could really see where she was having issues in the level 2 test. So now we know that's where she would start. Now I just have to figure out how adjust the budget in order to buy this. I'm supposed to get about $1200 when tax refund time comes around in Feb, so I may be able to swap a few things around to get some of that now to at least buy level 2.